In most parts of the world, many students help their schools make less pollution．They join environment clubs．In an environment club, people work together to make our environment clean．

    Here are some things students often do．

    No-garbage lunches．How many lunch bags do you throw away after lunch? Environment clubs ask students to bring their lunches in bags that can be used again．Every week they will choose the classes that make the least garbage and report them to the whole school．

    No-car day．On a no-car day, nobody comes to school in a car including the students and the teachers．Cars give pollution to us, so remember:

    Walk, jump, bike, or run!

    Use your legs! It's lots of fun!

    Turn off the water! Do you know that some toilets can waste twenty to forty cubic meters of water an hour? In a year, that would fill in a small river. In the environment clubs, students mend those broken toilets．

    We love our environment．Let's work together to make it better．

    Many wild animals, such as pandas, are in d{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Often there is not e{#blank#}2{#/blank#} land or forests, so the animals do not have a safe place to live.

    There are only about 1,600 pandas in the wild today. Pandas do not have many babies, and baby pandas often d{#blank#}3{#/blank#}. The situation is getting more and more difficult. We need to p{#blank#}4{#/blank#} them.

    The government is s{#blank#}5{#/blank#} up nature parks and the pandas live in peace there.

    In 1845, a deadly disease struck the farms of Ireland, killing all the Lumper potato plants. In another place or time, the death of single crop species (物种) might not have been so important. But in Ireland, in 1845, people depended almost solely on the potato for food. The death of one species caused a terrible famine(饥荒). Now, some scientists are worried that such a famine could happen again, but on a much wider scale.

    Over the centuries, farmers have discovered thousands of different species of food crops. Each species has special qualities. Some can be grown in very hot or cold climates. Others are not affected by certain diseases. However, you won't find many of these species in your local supermarket. To feed the seven billion people on Earth, most farmers today are growing only species of plants and farming only species of animals that are easy to produce in large numbers.

    For example, in the Philippines, there were once thousands of varieties of rice: now fewer than 100 are grown there. In China, 90 percent of the wheat varieties grown just a century ago have disappeared. Scientists believe that over the past century, we have allowed more than half of the world's food varieties to disappear.

    One solution to this problem is to collect and store the seeds (种子) as many different plant varieties as we can before they disappear. The idea was first suggested by Russian scientist Nikolay Vavilov. In the 1920s and 1930s, he collected around 400,000 seeds from five contients. More recently, others are continuing the work he began.

    In the U.S. state of Iowa, Diane Ott Whealy wanted to protect historic plant varieties, like the seeds her great –grandfather brought to the U.S. from Germany more than a hundred years ago. She and her husband started a place called Heritage Farm, where people can store and trade seeds.

    More importantly, the people at Heritage Farm don't just store the seeds; they plant them. By doing this, they are reintroducing foods into the marketplace that haven't been grown for years. These food species are not just special in terms of appearance or taste. They also offer farmers food solutions for the future, from the past.

    Bamboo(竹子) is one of nature s most surprising plants. Many people call this plant a tree, but it is a kind of grass.

    Like other kinds of grass, a bamboo plant may be cut very low to the ground, but it will grow back very quickly. A Japanese scientist reported one bamboo plant which grew 1.5 metres in 24 hours! There are more than 1, 000 kinds of bamboo. Bamboo grows almost everywhere in the world, but in Europe, they can't grow.

    Not all bamboo looks the same. Some bamboo plants are very thin. They may only grow to be a few centimetres wide while others may grow to be more than 30 centimetres across. This plant also comes in different colours, from yellow to black to green.

    Bamboo has been used to make many things such as hats and kitchen tools. Because it is strong, bamboo is also used to build buildings.

    Many Asian countries have used bamboo for hundreds of years. They often use bamboo for buildings and supporting(支撑) new buildings and bridges while they are being built.

    In Africa, poor farmers are taught how to bring water using bamboo. These African countries need cheap ways to bring water because they have no money, and their crops often die from no rain and no water. Bamboo pipes(管子) help poor farmers bring water to their thirsty fields without spending much money.